Design Process
Design has always been a strength of Icare since the company started close to 20 years ago. Icare has an integrated team of 7 designers, all based in Hong Kong and with solid training and experience in frame design for Europe and the US.
We can execute your design or/and we can help you designing your collection from anything you have: Photos, hand drawings, trend book, illustrator drawing or Cad. Some of our clients just come with…what they have in mind ! It will take our team about two weeks to design a collection from your brief.
We will submit to you Illustrator rendering first and then, technical CAD drawings for validation before prototyping. This step allows to check feasibility of each part and be ready to go for prototyping.
3D Prototype Printing
Icare has developed a 3D prototype printing department to quickly show some special effects or designs without the need to go into the prototyping phase. This technique aims at giving reality to technical and special features as much as accelerating shape and special hinge developments. 3D prototype printings can cut development time on all injected frames and speed up small changes onto a concept or a shape that does not require new photography.
Prototyping & Color Tries
From approved technical drawings, we will then prepare a set of prototypes so that our client can visualize and test design, shapes, sizes, fit and general outlook of each product. Client will modify and ask for another set of prototypes prior to go for colour tries.
Colour tries allow client to test colours on each of his models and to confirm production. In order to shorten development time, some clients decide to go straight for colour tries from technical drawings. It does cut development time by 4 to 5 weeks.
Production
Once colour tries are confirmed by client, we are ready to receive the final order and go for production.
Computerisation of the Production
The production in Icare is run by a proprietary database which provides us with accurate timelines, analysis, profitability and traceability at each production step. Planning and production plans are essential in production to ensure long term reliability of our delivery times. This database is the result of 20 years of experience in manufacturing and help us to monitor and plan our production for the whole Group.